“Why?” she asked guardedly. “What’s going on?”
Nikki dropped on her bed and gave Chelsea an earnest look. “The Tri Delts are having a blowout party tonight. I know you don’t like frat boys, Chelsea, but this party is going to be awesome. You have to come.”
Chelsea suppressed a sigh of impatience. It was always the same old song and dance with Nikki. She wanted Chelsea to share her nights of beer-drenched bashes with loud and arrogant frat boys. Chelsea wanted to stay home and work on her latest story. Maybe it sounded boring to Nikki, but in fact Chelsea found writing far more fascinating than listening to a self-centered jock brag about his latest sports victory.
“No, it won’t be awesome,” she said, her voice thin with impatience. She closed her book and sat up. “Bigger, maybe, but that’s about it.”
It was the first weekend of the new semester, all of the frats and many off-campus student apartments were hosting parties. After living under their parents’ roofs over winter break, everyone was especially excited to drink and cut loose tonight.
“Chelsea…” Her roommate adopted a wheedling tone. “You didn’t hook up once with anyone last semester.”
“That’s because I didn’t meet anyone worth hooking up with.” Chelsea fought the urge to become defensive.
Nikki leaned closer. “You know, I’ve read your stories for your writing class, Chels. For a girl with such a dirty imagination, you sure act…kind of pure.”
Chelsea’s annoyance exploded. “Nikki, how many times do I have to explain this to you? I don’t like college boys. Especially the Cro-Magnon idiots who live on fraternity row. I want an older man, someone experienced and intelligent. Someone sexy. You’ve read my stories, you should know that.”
She was so sick of explaining this. Yes, she was so physically frustrated she wanted to explode, and yes, her sexual imagination was downright depraved. But she did not want what passed as the typical mating rite here on campus—drinking herself stupid and going upstairs with a college guy who would thrust mechanically into her body for a few minutes before passing out. That seemed to her far cruder and more degrading than the kind of naughty scenes Jonathan Danvers wrote about. She’d heard the guys in her classes share their weekend exploits and frankly, the way they talked about their conquests was revolting.
But she couldn’t say that to Nikki. Nikki was one of those girls they talked about, a frat rat who could be seen every Sunday morning doing the walk of shame back to the dorm. She claimed to enjoy her wild sex life, saying that a steady boyfriend would bore her. Yet Chelsea had noticed that, whenever the other girls in the dorms brought up their Valentine’s Day plans, Nikki got a tight expression around her mouth. Stepford Girls, Nikki called them.
“I just know what I want, Nikki,” she said more gently. “And I’m willing to wait for it.”
“But for how long?” her roommate asked. “You don’t have any hot professors you can seduce. If you hate frat guys so much, why not turn Jeff into your fuck buddy? You know he practically bursts out of his pants whenever he sees you.”
A small smile crept across Chelsea’s face. Jeff lived one floor above them in the same dorm and was in her creative writing class. He was nice-looking enough, just not…sexy. Not experienced. Not arousing.
“Sorry, but I am not in the least bit attracted to him.” Chelsea smiled. “Besides, I think he’s hoping Professor Deveaux will seduce him some day after class.” She glanced at the clock. “Speaking of which, we’re going to be late if we don’t get going.”
The January sky continued to shed thick, soft snowflakes over campus as they hurried to class. From across the well-shoveled pathways came a familiar shout, “Chelsea! Nikki!” Chelsea glanced behind them to see Jeff running to catch up with them.
“Here comes your love slave,” Nikki murmured.
“Ssh! Don’t encourage him.” Chelsea took another look at him. “Huh, he looks kind of hung over. I’m surprised he didn’t just cut class.” Most of the students in their dorm started the weekend on Thursday night, Friday classes be damned.
“And miss his favorite two obsessions—Professor Deveaux and you?” Nikki said with a smile. “Not a chance.” With a brief wave at Jeff, she headed off down a different path toward the science building.
Chelsea waited with some resignation for Jeff to catch up with her. Though she didn’t return his feelings, she knew Nikki was right—Jeff suffered from a very transparent crush on her. He was very sweet, but there was no way she could be attracted to him. He was just too young and callow.
“Hey,” he said breathlessly as he reached her side. “We get our stories back today, right?”
“Right.” From the excited anticipation in his eyes, she knew Jeff was eager to read Professor Deveaux’s comments on their most recent assignment.
Their creative writing professor was widely considered to be the sexiest professor on campus. The fantasy of every undergraduate male, Odette Deveaux was thirty-two, French and beautiful. Maybe it was her Parisian ac
cent, or her long auburn hair and worldly dark eyes, but she tended to put every college boy—and some girls—under her spell merely by entering the classroom. Registration for her classes was so intense that anyone who wanted to be accepted had to submit two pieces of work and a short biography to be considered.
Chelsea had been nervous when she’d applied for the creative writing class. She wasn’t sure the professor would take her goals as an erotica writer seriously, or the other authors she had listed as her influences. Rumor had it that Professor Deveaux published erotica work herself under a pen name—but Chelsea attributed that to some frat boy’s overheated imagination. It was just too difficult to imagine cool, reserved Odette Deveaux writing dirty stories.
To her vast relief, she had been accepted into the class. All last semester she had worked hard to impress Professor Deveaux. This semester’s class had started out badly. Somehow the new assignment she had struggled over just hadn’t worked. The dorm had been too noisy and her mind too preoccupied with student loans, and somehow she just hadn’t been able to concentrate.
Unlike Jeff, who was eager for any crumb of attention from their professor, she was not looking forward to receiving her assignment back today. Their professor’s honesty could be a touch brutal at times.
They slipped into class. A moment later, Professor Deveaux strode into the room, elegant as always in a black suit. Her auburn hair was in a chignon. She didn’t bother to greet her class. Instead she returned the stories. “Some of you I was very pleased with, and others, not so much…”
Chelsea’s stomach clenched as she received her story. The comments were written at the top, criticizing her lack of direction and generic characters. Oh well. She had known it wasn’t her best work.
She glanced sideways at Jeff. He hadn’t even glanced at the comments on his assignment, his eyes were locked on their professor in rapt infatuation. Of course, Jeff didn’t really care about his work, he had registered for the class mainly to bask in Professor Deveaux’s allure. She smiled to herself. She could well understand his crush on a beautiful older woman, because if she had a sexy older male professor, she’d feel the same way. Unfortunately, all of her male professors were about as exciting as stale bread.